Standing Firm 2 - A Reasonable Faith

Standing Firm: 2 – A Reasonable Faith – 150407SUam

Readings: Romans 1: 16-20, Psalm 19

Back in January I began a series of sermons on standing firm. I don’t know where time goes, but it’s only now after all that happened through Lent and Easter that I’m getting back to it again. At the time I was talking about the fact that persecution could come to the Church in this country. As it is, the church comes under very heavy pressure from the media. How often do you see it said that anyone who believes in God is suffering from delusions? Or that anyone who believes in a creator God needs his head tested?

Last week I mentioned how vital Easter is in our Christian Faith. It is so significant that many people have tried to disprove the resurrection and say it couldn’t have happened and explain it away – knowing that if they can show that belief in the resurrection is false then everything else we believe falls with it.

Again and again in his epistles, Paul calls on us to stand firm. But many Christians are finding it more and more difficult to stand firm in the face of the constant attacks on what we believe. Questions are asked and our faith is challenged, and if we don’t have an answer, we feel that our faith is being undermined. We are told to stand firm, but sometimes we are not totally sure of what we are standing on!

But in I Peter 3: 15 we are told, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” But when challenges to our faith come out of the blue, we are often unready to explain why we believe as we do, and it is easy to become unsure of our faith and wonder whether what we believe is for real or an elaborate illusion.

I regularly follow the website of a Canadian pastor who actually lives just across the road from my sister’s house. He talks about the struggles of his church, about the people he pastors, he draws cartoons and paints pictures, and frequently posts something to challenge his readers, who reply and often start a huge discussion of serious issues.

A couple of weeks ago he quoted a challenge from an atheist and asked his readers to respond to it. And they did in droves. And the fascinating thing was that many atheists joined in the discussion. After a week of to and fro, both Christians and atheists were commenting that they had never come across a discussion between the two sides that was conducted with such good humour and respect for each other. What did Peter say? “Do this with gentleness and respect.” And last Sunday the pastor simply posted on his site the words, “He is risen.” And among the responses was one from one of the atheists, saying, “Although I don’t believe in the Resurrection, I’d like to wish you all a happy Easter!”

But the comment that started it all off was the challenge from a self-declared atheist who said that to prove to Christians that atheists were not all closed-minded, he would become a Christian on the spot if one of the following could be demonstrated to him:

Verifiable fulfilment of prophecies that couldn’t have been contrived, Scientific knowledge in the Bible that wasn’t available at the time, or miraculous occurrences, especially if they were the result of prayer. On the other hand, he would not be impressed by speaking in tongues or conversion stories or any subjective experiences that happened in the mind of the believer.

Now I actually doubt whether any one of those conditions would have actually convinced him. In the debate that followed, there were atheists saying that if there was a God he would prove to people that he existed, there were Christians seeking to present a proof of God’s existence, and atheists saying that Christianity was all an illusion in the mind, and that scientific advance had disproved the existence of God. And I was concerned by the arguments of some of the Christians that their faith seemed to stand on very shaky ground and the opposing arguments were pulling the carpet from under them. They were told that they simply lived on blind faith with nothing to back it up.

So I thought it would be good for us to consider today why we believe what we do and whether we do have a reasonable faith. Now I can’t speak for you, but I can explain some of the reasons why I am a Christian.

And unlike the atheist who said that if one of his conditions was fulfilled he would believe in God, I don’t base my faith on a single proof. Now you might have been told that faith is believing in something for which you have no evidence, but that does not seem to be the faith of the Bible. My faith is founded on a whole range of facts and experiences that together form a pattern of evidence that I find to be completely persuasive.

In our reading from Romans, Paul tells us that God has revealed his character and power in nature and in all that he has created. For centuries people looked at the created world and saw God’s hand in it. But when the enlightenment came, it was declared that there had to be a reasonable explanation for everything. One famous scientist, when asked what part God played in his theory, declared, “I have no need of that hypothesis.” And in that instance he was probably correct in that, although he was a Christian, he had produced a credible explanation of how something happened without needing to mention God. But that statement was taken by much of the scientific world as a rallying cry to create a view of the world that would exclude God from any part in the creation or sustaining of the universe, and show that it all came about through natural processes. And for many years scientific knowledge seemed to be doing just that, so that they would claim that all that was left was a God of the gaps.

But the fact is that more recent scientific discovery more and more supports the Bible accounts. The psalm we read told us that the heavens declare the glory of God. Genesis tells us that in the beginning God created. He spoke and a universe came into being. And now science says it has traced the history of the universe back to that beginning. And they can go no further. Although it must be true that if something has a beginning there must be a cause for that beginning, science on its own cannot discover the nature of this cause. And so some theoretical scientists, realising the implication of this have been trying to deny the discoveries of their colleagues and claim that the universe has always existed, producing theoretical suggestions that are backed by no actual evidence whatever.

But it is not just the fact that the universe began but the nature of the universe that speaks clearly of a creator with a purpose.

Scientists have discovered that the physical laws that govern the way the universe works are incredibly finely balanced to enable life to exist on this planet. Everything from the original phase space volume that governs the expansion of the universe to gravity to the strong nuclear force that holds atoms together, to the precise value of Einstein’s cosmological constant, to the exact balance of elements such as carbon and oxygen, and many more factors on top of that list, is finely tuned to a mind boggling degree. The probability that just the first of these would be such as to make life possible has been calculated as a number so large that it could not be written down in full – it would require more naughts than there are particles in the universe. Just imagine the probability of winning the lottery every week for a year. The odds against that happening are so remote as to be laughable. If someone were to do that, people might get the idea that the system was rigged in his favour. That might give you an idea of the probability that the universe could be as it is just by chance.And when you put them all together, because they all have to be incredibly accurate for there to be life at all, it points to the hand of an amazingly careful creator. And many scientists, have looked at the nature of the universe and their study has led them to believe in the God who so lovingly put it all together. Science should not stop us from believing in our creator God, but should fill us with awe as it reveals more and more of his handiwork. But all of this is only a small part of the basis of my faith.

You’ve probably been told that this planet is very ordinary and insignificant. But science seems to be indicating that actually the reason for the whole universe being the way that it is, is so that this amazing, unique planet we live on can be able to support life. And then, on top of everything else, the nature of this planet and of the solar system it sits in, is again incredibly finely balanced. Our Sun is perfect to support life here in many ways, the moon with its mass, its distance and its precise orbit is amazingly essential for making a habitable environment on earth. The size of the earth, the ratio of land to sea, the balance of the elements, of the different natural cycles, and so many other factors combine exactly as needed to make this earth habitable – a place uniquely designed as a home for mankind. And the Bible tells me that God designed it and created it and said that it was good.

But then there is the whole question of life actually existing on this planet. Take the basic unit of life – a single cell. It might seem to be a simple blob of jelly. But it is actually incredibly complex. It has been compared to a computer factory. It contains a vast memory, all the complex information needed to produce a complete human body, a method of reading that information, a language by which to pass the information on, a way to read that information when it arrives at the correct destination, a warehouse for the materials needed to build another cell, a logistical system to ensure that they are moved to precicely where they are needed, and the tools to do the job. And again the odds on all this coming together by chance are far beyond astronomical. It is not a question of it having evolved somehow, because without every part in place and working correctly it would be completely useless.

But this is not the end product. It all comes together into amazing human beings who can choose, act, feel, think, learn, communicate, cooperate, relate, wonder. And how often do we fail to wonder at the incredible priviledge of being alive, of living in a world in a universe that has been designed with such care. Surely we have been placed here because someone wanted us to be here right now, someone who had a purpose for our existence, someone who made us the way we are so that we can have a relationship with him.

I have seen miracles. I was sat next to my wife’s cousin when people prayed for him. He had entered the room using two sticks and supported on either side. His back trouble was so severe that the doctor could do nothing for him and he was about to give up his teaching job because he couldn’t stand up. And then he was prayed for. And he walked out of that room on his own, leaving his sticks behind. The next day he went on a five mile walk with his family. And so I would consider all the atheist’s conditions for faith to be met.

But that is still not what my faith is based on though it does create a vast store of supporting evidence. So if we have been put here for a purpose, surely we would not be left in the dark as to what that purpose is. And we do have a holy God who has revealed himself, not just through nature, however much we can see his hand in it, but also through his Word and through his Son and through his Spirit. And his Word is reliable. It teaches me about himself and about myself and I know through my experience that what it says about me is true. It tells me that he loves me and of a Saviour who was to come, and how he did, fulfilling the prophecies in a remarkable way. And in his Son I see life as it should be. I was created with a longing for a perfection that I am incapable of achieving, but in Jesus I see the reality. And in him I also see the solution to my own inadequacy. God who created me has also made the way for my life to be made perfect in his sight when Jesus actually died for me and rose again. And I have known the touch of his Spirit on my life in ways I could not have imagined or fabricated. But even all this is not the complete explanation as to why I am a Christian.

In John 7: 17, Jesus says, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God, or whether I speak on my own.” Over the past couple of weeks we have been saying that everything Jesus has done for us demands a response. And here Jesus is telling us that if we really want to know the truth of who he is, we need to make a commitment to follow him. It is not enough to simply believe the facts, however much you are convinced by them. Paul said in Philippians that he wanted to know Jesus and share in his suffering and his resurrection.To know Jesus means to take up your cross and follow where he leads you, walking by faith. And if you do that then you really will discover the reality of who he is.

But it is not a blind faith. Blind faith would jump off the Town Hall if it believed it could land safely. And it would go splat. But faith in Jesus is a reasonable faith based on the facts all around us that show us what a loving God we have. But it is also a risk-taking faith that follows him into the unknown.

What is your faith based on? Is it based on feelings, or on what you have picked up from other people? Have you thought through why you believe? Remember what Peter said – “Be prepared to give an answer.” Being prepared means that you can be certain in your own mind of what you believe and why. Think about it, talk about it, pray about it, and be sure that your faith is based on a firm foundation. You will find some questions in In Touch to help get you started. And then you will be able to stand firm, and gently and respectfully give an answer for the hope that is in you.

Let’s stand and sing, “O Lord my God when I in awesome wonder consider all the works thy hand hath made.”